March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Reseau de Transport d’Electricite,
France’s power grid owned by Electricite de France SA, will get
500 million euros ($648 million) in loans from the European
Investment Bank to develop electricity infrastructure.

The bank has agreed to help finance seven high voltage and
very high voltage power grid projects between 2012 and 2016,
according to a statement from RTE, which is based outside Paris.

RTE signed for the first 300 million-euro tranche today and
the rest of the lending agreement will be completed in 2014, it
said.

RTE has said it plans to spend almost 8 billion euros from
2012 to 2016 and almost double that by the end of the decade to
add and refurbish electricity transmission lines as the country
plans to lower its reliance on nuclear energy and increase
renewable energy production.

Today’s financing deal will help pay for the completion of
the Cotentin-Maine high-voltage line, which links EDF’s EPR
reactor being built in Flamanville in Normandy to the grid,
according to the statement. It will also help pay for links in
eastern and southern France.

EDF’s 58 reactors provide more than three-quarters of
France’s electricity. French President Francois Hollande has
pledged to lower this reliance on atomic energy to about 50
percent by 2025. The policy change was triggered by the 2011
nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan.

Brittany in western France and Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur
in the south lack power-generation capacity and face risks of
shortages in the event of a plant or network failure, the grid
has said. Brittany produces 10 percent of its power needs.

Strengthening a link between Lyon and Montelimar is
“considered a major project for the security of Europe’s power
grid,” RTE said today.